Quote of the day

Never in the history of the United States has the Congress ever passed a law which required any citizen to enter into a contract with another citizen or a private business against their will …… Never, that is, until now. How’s that for change?

6 Responses to “Quote of the day”

The federal government has passed laws that require people to go to war against their will and give up a portion of their income against their will. It has passed laws that lock citizens in jail for life against their will and laws that have forced others to be executed.

That is the nature of government: it has compulsory power. After compulsions to fight, give up money, and die, what is so fundamentally outrageous about a compulsion to enter into insurance contracts?

Who was talking about jail or war? That quote points out that the Government is FORCING you to purchase a product. First time it ever has. Taxes are not purchasing a product or entering a contract to purchase something.

Quit trying to ignore the obvious D.M. This simple fact is being pointed out by many, many, as you put it, scholarly, people across the country yet you and only you seem to have it figured out that it’s not correct. Wait, let me get my ass off the floor, I just laughed it off.

Yes, I realize that the individual mandate is semi-compulsory. I say “semi” because you can still refuse to buy insurance and nobody will force you to, you just have to pay a little more on your taxes to help cover the cost to society that you are as an uninsured person.

My point is that that is what government does – it passes laws that compel action. It has done it before with things like the draft and the income tax, and it did it (semi) again with the individual health insurance mandate. It will do it again because that’s what government does. My point is that this is no big deal, it isn’t history-making.

I know that “taxes are not purchasing a product or entering a contract to purchase something,” but what is the philosophical difference? If we grant government the authority to require its citizens to fight and die in wars and give up chunks of their own money, what is the big deal about granting it the authority to require its citizens to purchase insurance?

Personally I think it would be better if the government ran health care like a utility company and got rid of the insurance companies. Private industry in health care has been a failure in this country. This is one of the few areas where socialism has been shown to work. This middle of the road shit is helpful – and moves us in the right direction, but it’s far more complicated than it needs to be. I predict a big confusing mess coming this way. But that’s life.

Opinions on health care were so divergent, I don’t think it would be possible to come up with a system that a majority agreed on. We’re lucky to get this. Now, if we can just clean it up and forge it into something better…

So, you think that it should be illegal to run an insurance company? You think it would be more efficent? Can you show me where the Government has run anything better than a private company? Or at a lower cost?